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nhanhuynhit
Contributor
Contributor

Error: The capacity of the parent virtual disk and the capacity of the child disk are different

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Getting error: The capacity of the parent virtual disk and the capacity of the child disk are different

Hi,

I was trying to increase the hard disk space of a 1TB GB Windows Server 2012 to a 1.3TB. I shut down the vm then ssh'd into the ESXi server.

Then, when I powered up the vm I got and still am getting an Error

Reason: The capacity of the parent virtual disk and the capacity of the child disk are different.
Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/503fd5b8-d1cef086-eb4a-10bf487b38db/DC/DC-000001.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

 

I have tried numerous things but it not works.

 

I have some really important work on my VM that I am trying to restore. I should have backed it up before doing anything but I did. Now it seems like I am paying the price.

 

Can anyone help me recover my VM? Is there a way to increase the size of the snapshot (DC-000001.vmdk) or reduce the size of the parent so they match and the vm starts up?

 

Please help.

Thank you

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2 Replies
scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

How did you increase the disk size?

Can the change be reversed?

Do you have a backup of the VM?

Why does the VM have a snapshot?

 


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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

I can't promise you anything, but if you provide some information I will check what can be done.

  • free disk space on the datastore (output of df -h)
  • a list of files in the VM's folder (output of ls -lisa)
  • all descriptor .vmdk files (the small text files) in a .zip archive attached to your next reply
  • what exactly did you try/modify so far?

The snapshot cannot be modified, because it contains metadata related to the virtual disk's original provisioned size. However, there may be a chance to "shrink" the parent disk.

To have a way back in case things don't work as expected, please consider to backup all the VM's files, by using e.g. WinSCP, and downloading them to a local disk.

André

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